7 Ways to Pimp Your iPhone

Beyond the case and the apps, there are all kinds of ways to personalize your phone. Here are seven favorites.

We express our personality in many ways: the way we dress, the cars we drive, how we decorate our homes, and, these days, the smartphone we carry. The selection of any bit of technology, especially a phone, is often a very personal choice, whether it's about budget, style, function or a combination of any or all of these things.

Put simply, we are our phones. There are iPhone lovers and Android fanatics. Of course, there are still some BlackBerry loyalists and, if you look hard enough, you'll even spot some Windows Phone 7 adopters. I came a bit late to the cult of Apple, waiting patiently for the Verizon iPhone 4, and I, like many others, fell hard and fast.

While our phones tend to reflect our personality, they also seem to take on a persona of their own. Lay your iPhone down next to those of your friends and, odds are, they'll all look very different. One may have a thick rubber case while another may have a barely-there metal closure. And then there are those that forego the case altogether. (Brave people, you are.) Before I even had my iPhone, I had a case for it.

Press that Home button and you'll notice even more differences: the way people organize their apps (if they're organized at all) as well as the types of apps they download. Many of the apps I've downloaded have come from our semi-regularly updated lists of The 50 Best iPhone Apps and The 40 Best Free iPhone Apps for 2011, or they're based on friends' recommendations. And we all have our absolute favorites. (Without a doubt, mine is Hipstamatic!)

Beyond the case and apps, there are about a million ways we can personalize our phones. The accessory market is booming. Good, bad or just plain weird, there are all kinds of things out there. Here are seven of the more interesting and fun ways you can personalize your iPhone. And yes, I had a specific person in mind when choosing each one…even myself.